The overall action in preparation is to be ready for every stage of the
actual negotiation. In preparation, you may walk through many scenarios and
prepare for many eventualities.

How much time should you spend in preparation? As much as is appropriate. If
you are buying a fridge, you may read a few reviews. If you are buying a house
or a business, then much more serious preparation is needed. The sections below
are rather long, especially if you follow all the links. This reflects how
useful it can be to think through the whole negotiation process before you
start.

Know what you want

Understand needs

The first step in preparation is to know what you really want. This may seem
obvious, but many negotiators do not understand their deeper
needs, let alone their
goals for this
negotiation.

It is often very helpful to differentiate between
positions and interests, as
this can give you significantly more flexibility.

Know your priorities

Distinguish between your needs,
wants and likes. Know what you really need and know what you are ready to
give away. Know what is more important and what is less important. Know what
something is worth generally and also worth to you.

Two common areas of importance are time and money. How important are these to
you? Are you desperate to conclude the negotiation today or could you let
negotiations drag on for a while. Is money a critical factor, or could you flex
on this to find a good deal? Generally speaking, the more flexibility you have,
the greater the chance you have of reaching a satisfying conclusion.

Identify your boundaries

What will be your opening offer? If it is too high, you might insult the
other person or frighten then off. If it is too low, you may lose out. To do
this, you may need to consider the
agreement zones that might occur.

Your opening offer will be based on a combination of the range of 'reasonable
value' of the things that you want, the situation of the other person and the
dynamics that you want to cause within the negotiation itself.

In practice, if the other person makes an opening offer first, which can be a
useful action, you may revise your opening offer. Nevertheless, it is still
worth deciding where you will start.

Know how you'll get there

When you know what you want from the negotiation, the next step is to plan
for how the negotiation might operate in practice. Of course you cannot predict
exactly how things will go, but this preparation will significantly increase
your chance of succeeding.

Count your resources

Look at everything you have at your disposal that you can bring to bear on
this negotiation. What do you have that the other person might value? When
buying something, what extra money could you bring to the table? Do you have
people you can call on for support? Can you use time in any way?

Finding variables is a key
activity that can significantly increase your options. Look to the variables in the resources that you have. What could you increase
or decrease? What could be expanded? What could be exchanged?

Develop your concession strategy

When you know where to start, you can now
develop the concession
strategy, whereby you will make exchanges in order to gain final agreement.
This will include the use of
variables where you can made trades in many different areas.

Develop your walk-away position

Having a walk-away alternative can be
surprisingly useful and you should spend a proportionate amount of time in
developing your walk-away.
Thus, if you are buying a house, you should spend a lot of time and effort,
whilst if you are persuading your son to go to bed, then a few moments thought
can be a wise investment.

Guess the same for them

After you have a good idea about your needs and priorities, repeat the
exercise with regard to the other person. If you can even half-guess what they
want and what they are prepared to give away, then you are well on the way to a
successful negotiation.

Understand the person

Start by taking time to understand the person with whom you will be
negotiating. What are their
beliefs and values?
What is their
personality and
preferences? What are their
goals, both overall and
in the negotiation?

Assess their likely approach

Having understood your own approach, you should also consider how the other
person will approach the negotiation. This may be done after you have built your
own strategy, although it can be useful to do this in parallel. Thus, understand your needs and then
consider their needs, and so on.

At the very least, do a final review of both your and their likely
strategies. A good way of doing this is to write them down on paper and place
them side-by-side.

Set up the meeting

Finally, set up the negotiation meeting itself, if this is appropriate. If
you can choose the time and the place, you can add further control over the tone
of the meeting.

Select the time and place

Choose a right time for the negotiation
can be very useful. You may not want to negotiate when people are not ready to
give you the attention you need (although when they are distracted by other
things can sometimes be useful for getting compliance to a 'small' request).

Setting up location in
which to negotiate, considering everything from
geography to
seating is also an important
activity. Our environment shapes how we feel and hence how we think.

Invite the other person

Finally, invite the other person to join you. In a
surprise negotiation, you might
invite them to a 'meeting' in which you spring the negotiation on them, hoping
to gain advantage from their
confusion.

In many situations, however, and particularly where the
relationship is
important, then you may prefer to let them know that this meeting is intended to
reach an equitable agreement.

When the other person is hard to get time with, then you may need to book
their time well ahead, which itself can be something of a difficult negotiation.

Prepare yourself

Being personally prepared includes knowledge of the situation and others as
described above. It also includes mental and emotional preparation. If it is a
big negotiation, then you may want to catch up on any lost sleep or maybe take a
day or two to wind down.

Preparation also includes your appearance. As necessary get your hair styled,
buy new clothes and ensure you are clean and well-groomed on the day. A smart
appearance signals a smart mind, which can make all the difference.